Description

After the Stranger has rescued Atrus, the master of "linking books", from the imprisonment caused by his sons, a new task awaits the hero. Atrus's wife, Catherine, has been taken by Gehn, his own father. Gehn has appointed himself as the one to rule the Age of Riven, and has driven his world to collapse. Now he holds Catherine hostage on Riven, hoping that his son will restore the book link to the Age and free him from there. The Stranger is requested by Atrus to travel to Riven and find a way to rescue Catherine.

Riven is a sequel to Myst, and is very similar to its predecessor in gameplay style, controls, and visual presentation. The game world is presented as a series of computer-generated still screens; the player explores it in a point-and-click fashion. Interaction with the environment is possible only when said environment is highlighted as a "hot spot", and is also performed by simple clicking. Like its predecessor, Riven is heavy on puzzles, which rarely include using inventory items, but usually involve understanding and manipulating the complex environments and machinery of the game world.

Related Web Sites

Riven EPK (archived) (Electronic press kit for the game featuring in game footage, behind the scenes look and more.)

Riven UHS Hints (A collection of hints for the game provided by the Universal Hint System (UHS). UHS hints are structured in such a way as not to give away the answer immediately but, instead, to provide the player with increasingly more revealing hints before finally providing a complete solution.)

Riven X (archived) (An open source project that allows Macintosh users to run both the CD and DVD versions of Riven on their modern operating systems. )

The Myst Guidebook (The Riven subsection of the Guidebook fansite that provides information about the game and a brief background on the game's production in addition to game hints and a walkthrough.)

The Starry Expanse Project (A fan-organized project attempting re-create Riven as a realtime 3D game in a fashion similar to realMYST. The project is currently still active.)